I was living in South East Asia when the USS Vincennes incident took place, and it was widely reported there. But I do remember when I returned to Australia, hardly anybody knew about what had happened. That was my first introduction to 'curated news' by various countries.
Of course, a few years later when the family of the Captain of the Vincennes was targeted in a failed car bomb attack, we heard a bit about this 'terrorist' activity. I thought it interesting that when Western forces eradicate an entire family of a suspected 'terrorist' via anonymous drone strikes, it is considered merely collateral damage, a byproduct of a dutiful and patriotic thing to do, but when Iranian operatives attempt to retaliate against someone who murdered 290 of its citizens in their own airspace, it is an underhanded terrorist activity.
Summary for those who like me didn't know about the incident. Our guy shot down a passenger flight, murdering 290 human beings, we gave him a medal but we then paid USD$213,000 in blood money per passenger to Iran without ever admitting fault.
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Iran Air Flight 655 was an Iran Air passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai. On 3 July 1988, the aircraft operating on this route was shot down by the United States Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes under the command of William C. Rogers III. The incident took place in Iranian airspace, over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, and on the flight's usual flight path. The aircraft, an Airbus A300 B2-203, was destroyed by SM-2MR surface-to-air missiles fired from Vincennes. All 290 people on board died
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As part of the settlement, the United States did not admit legal liability or formally apologize to Iran but agreed to pay on an ex gratia basis US$61.8 million, amounting to $213,103.45 per passenger, in compensation to the families of the Iranian victims.
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Commander David Carlson, commanding officer of USS Sides, the warship stationed nearest to Vincennes at the time of the incident, is reported to have said that the destruction of the aircraft "marked the horrifying climax to Captain Rogers's aggressiveness, first seen four weeks ago".
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In 1990, Rogers was awarded the Legion of Merit "for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding service as commanding officer ... from April 1987 to May 1989.
Compare it to KAL 007 5 years prior. Wiki has the front pages of News Week "Murder in the skies" vs "Why it happened". Would be interesting to see what to Soviet newspapers were writing - Soviets didn't acknowledge they shot down the plane until 5 days later!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007#In...
In conclusion when an imperialistic superpower makes a mistake don't expect apologies.
He got a medal for completing his tour. He didn't get a medal for shooting down the plane. It's normal to get a medal whenever you move in the military. Not saying he deserved one, but the military wasn't going out if it's way to reward the shoot down if a civilian airliner.
I'm not sure whether using binoculars at 20km distance makes sense, though. There's quite a size difference, but even if it would be easy to spot the difference from that far away having half a minute or so to find the plane using your binoculars would be challenging (it's about a minute of flight for a passenger plane, but if it were military, you would want to hit it before it had a chance to fire a missile, and according to Wikipedia, the Maverick that they feared an Iranian F14 might carry has a range of over 12 nautical miles)
> Our guy shot down a passenger flight, murdering 290 human beings, we gave him a medal but we then paid USD$213,000 in blood money per passenger to Iran without ever admitting fault.
Vincennes believed it was shooting down an attacking Iranian fighter, not a passenger jet. It wasn't murder; it was an accident (due to faulty electronic data). We didn't give the skipper a medal for shooting down the plane; we gave him an end-of-tour award. And I don't know what the big deal with paying weregild is: that's what you do.
Has Russia paid anything to the families of the Malaysian airliner shoot-down?
> Vincennes believed it was shooting down an attacking Iranian fighter
This was due to gross incompetence/negligence. This was a Ticonderoga class frigate equipped with the (then state of the art) Aegis weapons system [1] - capable of knocking down an Exocet missile out of the sky with a hose of lead.
From the linked article:
"The Aegis system was involved in a disaster in which USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 in 1988 resulting in 290 civilian deaths.
It was determined by a formal military investigation[17] that the Aegis system was completely operational and did not have any maintenance problems. The investigation ruled that if the commanding officer had relied on the complete tactical data displayed by the Aegis system the engagement might never have occurred. Additionally, psychological effects of the crew subconsciously manipulating the data to accord with a predefined scenario greatly contributed to the false identification."
Aside from the fact that the captain of the Vincennes was in Iranian waters (without authorisation - and which the US Navy lied about on formal reports), plus the reports of his rising aggression from colleagues working with him, should push this into a military disciplinary matter, along with demotion or discharge.
No, but horrible things down by other people doesn't really have anything to do with stuff we do. We can't control other countries (well without forcing things) but we can and should control what we do.
You are correct on Vincennes. And it was reported. It was talked about. We (Americans) were horrified and apologetic- and angry with our military (at least on the college campus).
> Has Russia paid anything to the families of the Malaysian airliner shoot-down?
If you want to compare situations, the Malaysian airliner flew over an active warzone, along the same path as Ukrainian military planes that were targeting the rebels.
Surely you can see the situations aren't quite the same.
Of course, a few years later when the family of the Captain of the Vincennes was targeted in a failed car bomb attack, we heard a bit about this 'terrorist' activity. I thought it interesting that when Western forces eradicate an entire family of a suspected 'terrorist' via anonymous drone strikes, it is considered merely collateral damage, a byproduct of a dutiful and patriotic thing to do, but when Iranian operatives attempt to retaliate against someone who murdered 290 of its citizens in their own airspace, it is an underhanded terrorist activity.